ABSTRACT

This book provides a detailed analysis of one of the most prominent and widespread international phenomena to which criminal justice systems has been applied: the expression of revisionist views relating to mass atrocities and the outright denial of their existence. Denial poses challenges to more than one academic discipline: to historians, the gradual disappearance of the generation of eyewitnesses raises the question of how to keep alive the memory of the events, and the fact that negationism is often offered in the guise of historical 'revisionist scholarship' also means that there is need for the identification of parameters which can be applied to the office of the 'genuine' historian. Legal academics and practitioners as well as political scientists are faced with the difficulty of evaluating methods to deal with denial and must in this regard identify the limits of freedom of speech, but also the need to preserve the rights of victims. Beyond that, the question arises whether the law can ever be an effective option for dealing with revisionist statements and the revisionist movement. In this regard, Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective breaks new ground: exploring the background of revisionism, the specific methods devised by individual States to counter this phenomenon, and the rationale for their strategies. Bringing together authors whose expertise relates to the history of the Holocaust, genocide studies, international criminal law and social anthropology, the book offers insights into the history of revisionism and its varying contexts, but also provides a thought-provoking engagement with the challenging questions attached to its treatment in law and politics.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

part I|48 pages

Development and concept of genocide denial

chapter 1|13 pages

Alexander Ratcliffe

British Holocaust denial in embryo

chapter 3|21 pages

Holocaust denial in the age of web 2.0

Negationist discourse since the Irving-Lipstadt trial

part II|131 pages

Holocaust and genocide denial around the world

chapter 4|14 pages

Silence and denial in Gulag testimonies

Listening for the unspeakable

chapter 5|14 pages

The presence of the past

On the significance of the Holocaust and the criminalisation of its negation in the Federal Republic of Germany 1

chapter 7|24 pages

Reckoning with the past?

Rwanda’s revised Genocide Ideology Law and international human rights law on freedom of expression

chapter 9|13 pages

Confronting genocide denial

Using the law as a tool in combating genocide denial in Rwanda

chapter 10|13 pages

Srebrenica and genocide denial in the former Yugoslavia

What has the ICTY done to address it?

chapter 11|12 pages

Holocaust denial in Iran

Ahmadinejad, the 2006 Holocaust conference and international law

chapter 12|16 pages

A centenary of denial

The case of the Armenian genocide

part III|70 pages

Dealing with Holocaust and genocide denial

chapter 13|24 pages

From introduction to implementation

First steps of the EU Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA against racism and xenophobia 1

chapter 14|19 pages

Combating genocide denial via law

État des lieux of anti-denial legislation

chapter 15|21 pages

Why not the law?

Options for dealing with genocide and Holocaust denial